Edward Rico has a terrible secret that threatens the already tenuous bond he has with his brother, Verne, and when Verne learns of his brother’s betrayal he disappears, literally, in a fit of rage, through a mysterious arch in the London subway.
As more of the arches appear across the world, Ed resolves to right the wrong he has done and go after his brother, enlisting the help of Verne’s wife Alice. Together they embark on an adventure that neither of them is prepared for or could ever imagine.

Four hundred years in the future, starship captain Katherine Abdulov is offered an olive branch from the influential family that has disowned her. One mission. To travel to a distant planet and maintain the family’s monopoly on the Pep harvest before rival trader and Kat’s former lover, Victor Luciano claims it for his own. With the Abdulov reputation on the line and the chance to be welcomed back into the fold, what better incentive could there be than to go against the man who not only caused her expulsion but also then jilted her after the fact?

In the Strauli system, a mysterious race called the Dho inhabit a gigantic quartz ship called the Ark. They tolerate the intrusion and curiosity of humans, for they are an ancient race and they have been waiting patiently for a man to come into their midst – and a devastating evil to return.

Following on from his debut novel Silversands. Gareth L Powell has written another rip-roaring adventure that engages its warp drives right from the get-go and never slows down. From the moment Verne Rico disappears through an arch, we’re flung from one mysterious world to another, shot into the far-future and brought face-to-face with an unstoppable, unspeakable terror.
In The Recollection, Powell has managed to combine many SF tropes into a concise, exciting read. What I particularly liked about the book was the juxtaposition of the two main characters. Abdulov is a hard-nosed, kick-ass space captain with a clear goal in mind – revenge. Ed Rico, on the other hand, is a somewhat selfish, down-on-his-luck artist with a string of bad decisions behind him who seems to be acting more out of a sense of duty than anything else. What becomes apparent as the book progresses, is that Abdulov and Rico, two people from different times and different universes, may have more in common than first impressions would suggest.
The three threads of the story are woven together masterfully, resulting in a snowballing pace and a seamless transition when worlds and times collide. When the climax arrives, the reader is well and truly strapped in for a fight of epic proportions.
So, if you like your Sci-Fi bursting with ideas, packed full of adventure and seasoned with a healthy dose of time-travel, sentient spaceships and nanotech – The Recollection is for you.

Stuart Clark is the author of the Project U.L.F. Sci-Fi adventure series

4 responses to “The Recollection by Gareth L. Powell – A review”

Great review Stuart, wonderful to have you participating in the Experience with us. I just saw this book mentioned on another site today and I’m of course going crazy trying to remember just where. Because I can’t help but try to satisfy my curiosity, can you tell me who the cover artist is?